Lewandowski: Border wall was hallmark of Trump campaign

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Lewandowski: Border wall was hallmark of Trump campaign

Reaction to the president's immigration meeting on 'The Ingraham Angle.'

This is a rush transcript from "The Ingraham Angle," January 10, 2018. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

LAURA INGRAHAM, HOST: Good evening from Washington. I'm Laura Ingraham and this is "The Ingraham Angle." In light of his powwow, the number of pro-amnesty congressional leaders, should the president's core supporters panic? That's the focus of tonight's Angle.

As I noted last night, it was terrific for the president to let the sunlight in during that DACA back and forth at the White House. Transparency is long overdue in the legislative process. It's something I've been asking for, for years.

He was engaged and enthusiastic about having both sides at the table, it was really good. He also reiterated that the wall and ending chain migration was a prerequisite for any deal on the so-called "DREAMers." But not so reassuring was when this went down.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You turn on the Fox News and I could hear the drumbeat coming. Right-wing radio and TV talk show hosts are going to beat the out of us because it's going to be amnesty all over again.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: And then the president basically seconded that emotion.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: It's very interesting because I do have people -- to use the very common term -- very far right and very far left, they are very unhappy about what we're doing, but I really don't believe they have to be.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Excuse me? Lindsey Graham hitting Fox News? That's nothing new. If the president hitting the far right, that's adopting the language of his fiercest critics on the left and many in the open borders crowd, pretty surprising. Then here was the piece de resistance.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: This could come back hopefully with an agreement, this group and others from the Senate, from the House, come back with an agreement, I'm signing it -- I will be signing it. I'm not going to say oh, gee, I want this, I want that, I will be signing it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Here's the part that made Jeb Bush all warm and fuzzy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PRESIDENT TRUMP: This should be a bipartisan bill. It should be a bill of love and we can do that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Wait, does that sound a little bit familiar?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEB BUSH, FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Yes, they broke the law but it's not a felony. It's an act of love.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Do you remember when Candidate Trump ridiculed "Low Energy Jeb" for that?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PRESIDENT TRUMP: He said they come as an act of love. Tell that to the families and there are many, many, many families who lost a loved one, act of love. It's no act of love.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Remember Candidate Trump saying this?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HANNITY: No citizenship.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: No citizenship. Let me go a step further. They will pay back taxes. They have to pay taxes. There is no amnesty as such. There is no amnesty.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Listen to the crowd. So, what happened? May be the president realized he's never going to get a wall unless he does that DACA amnesty, maybe. Maybe he thinks he just can't end chain migration unless he gives legal status to those 800,000 illegals. They range from about 16 years of age to 30 years old, they are not all kids now. That is a hard pill for many of his most loyal supporters to swallow. Today, many of my radio listeners were in meltdown mode.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED CALLER: we're not going to get a new wall, I'll bet my shirt on that.

UNIDENTIFIED CALLER: If he breaks his promise and he grants amnesty to these DREAMers, it's over. I think it's over.

UNIDENTIFIED CALLER: My kids were born and raised in America, we have dreams too. If we don't obey the law, nobody comes and gives us free stuff.

UNIDENTIFIED CALLER: We are not far right when we simply insist upon abiding by the legal immigration rules and national sovereignty, when did that ever become far right?

UNIDENTIFIED CALLER: I'm feeling deflated right now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: I did my best to buck up for the listeners, but it wasn't easy. Now, it's true President Trump is winning praise for his newfound openness to things like comprehensive immigration reform. We all know that's mass amnesty, but he's winning it from some of the same people who are enemies of his populist agenda. By the way, the same people who revile his supporters.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I thought that it was great to see our friends in both parties in there.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think opening it up and letting them see talk to each other, there was a positive feeling about that.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is the presidency that many people thought Donald Trump was capable of. The notion of him being in command.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think it was very helpful both before the cameras left and after they left.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: That's the guy who wrote the book trashing Trump and it didn't vote for him. Not so long ago they were calling you, Mr. President, and your agenda far right, extreme right, racist, xenophobic, alt-right.

The president's new friends with the bipartisan (inaudible) that's been pushing amnesty for years have a few goals in mind. The Republicans want cheap labor and the Democrats want new voters, who are captive to big government.

But, there's another goal that the establishment hopes to accomplish, they want to separate Donald Trump from his base and break the spirit of the populist movement whether or not going to succeed.

They think they will, though, because people like Steve Bannon has been sidelined and they think their moment has arrived. The president has to remain loyal to his supporters and his agenda, the one he ran on, the one that won all that applause and rave reviews and all those rallies where people stood in line in hours in the cold.

He has to be willing to walk away from a bad deal just the way Reagan walked away from a bad deal with the Soviets at Reykjavik. Look, we all understand that governance is difficult and sometimes you have to get the best deal you can with the votes you were given.

But I think Kevin McCarthy who is not exactly an immigration hardliner had it right when he cautioned the president yesterday during that meeting, he said, look, you can't agree to a deal that compounds the problem, a deal that ends up attracting more illegals down the road.

Right now, we have another surge happening at the border and one that fails to fortify the border, really fortify it. Now there is a possibility that President Trump is doing something else and will leave this possibility open and he's playing a really smooth game with Republicans and Democrats and the media.

So, while he conveys an openness to negotiating, I love you guys, he's forcefully staking out his ground and managing to bring all parties to the table and it's not just that. Just this week, there are really encouraging signs.

The president is doing the hard work of enforcement. He just announced that 200,000 Salvadorans who were supposed to be here temporarily, been here for about 25 years, are going to finally have to go home because the hurricane is over.

Today, the administration rated about a hundred 7-11's hunting for illegal employees and going after the employers who are abusing them and abusing the system. This is the kind of robust, proactive enforcement that Americans expect, and his supporters demanded.

But, when it comes to any DACA deal, the president has got to realize there are two things that matter above all else. Number one, DACA is the only leverage he has to implement his entire immigration agenda.

Number two, Democrats favor granting citizenship to these illegal aliens because they believe it is the absolute key to achieving a super majority, just like the one they currently have in California. They want that in every key battleground states.

There's so much more at stake than the future of the DREAMers. This deal could decide the fate of the country. I'm going to wait to see what the final DACA proposal looks like, but if it does not include a wall, a real wall, not a see-through wall, expect a political revolt from the base, which means losing the House and maybe even losing the Senate.

By the way, chain migration absolutely necessary. If those things aren't in the deal or are watered down so badly they don't exist at all, we end up losing the House, the Senate -- who is going to be left to defend the president?

Dick Durbin, Lindsey Graham, or all those hard-right people whose radio shows are on Fox News? The president did not promise his supporters an opaque electronic fence, it only covers a third of the border. He promised them a big beautiful wall.

Unless it's built, chain migration is ended, I fear, Mr. President, your most ardent supporters will write you off as just another politician who said something he didn't really mean and that would be heartbreaking. And that's THE ANGLE.

Joining us now for reaction in New York is Monica Crowley. She's the senior fellow at the London Center for Policy Research and here in Washington, Tamar Jacoby, an immigration activist and president and CEO of Immigration Works, and Corey Lewandowski, former campaign manager for Donald Trump and co-author of the new bestseller "Let Trump Be Trump."

All right. Corey, there are people you heard my radio listeners, really worried, I want to hold out hope and reserve judgment for the final deal. But you heard the quotes from the president at that meeting. He'll agree to anything they say, if a deal is going to get done, comprehensive immigration reform is coming. Of course, throw in the reference to the hard right. People aren't too happy. The ones who actually stood in line in the heat, winter weather to see him.

COREY LEWANDOWSKI, FORMER TRUMP CAMPAIGN MANAGER: This president made campaign promises that he needs to fulfill. If you don't fulfill those campaign promises, what we will see in November is a retaliation against the president because he hasn't done that. The first and biggest campaign promise that he made was to build the wall.

I went to all of those rallies. We heard the response. We heard that Mexico was going to pay for it. This is a hallmark of the campaign that Donald Trump ran on to make sure that we are putting America first. That has been his agenda. That's what he has campaigned on and that's what he is going to fulfill as president of the United States.

INGRAHAM: Tamar, people like Jeff Flake who didn't even vote for the president, he's probably closer to you in agreement on immigration, that he certainly is someone like me or a Candidate Trump, he said the wall will be something like 700 miles, but it won't really be a wall everywhere. It will be kind of fencing and so forth. Would that be acceptable to someone like you?

TAMAR JACOBY, PRESIDENT AND CEO, IMMIGRATION WORKS: No. I think we need to secure the border. We need to do whatever it takes to secure the border and Jeff Flake is not the only person in Congress who is working on this. He's not the only person who said that president is going in the right direction today.

So, did John Cornyn and some conservative senators like Tillis and Lankford -- people in the House like Goodlatte and Labrador. There are plenty of conservative hardline Republicans who think we need a DACA deal and think a DACA deal is the way to build the wall.

INGRAHAM: I think you're right, there is not votes to do that, but obviously, you could physically --

JACOBY: If you want to find the money the way to get the money out of Congress, you need a bipartisan vote.

INGRAHAM: But if people actually thought a fortified border was important and -- we need roads there. We need a wall.

JACOBY: We need more men, we need judges, we did all kinds of things.

INGRAHAM: That is an absolute must have come out why link it to the DACA at all? What does it have to do?

JACOBY: Before he was inoculated he said we should do something for the DACA kids? Why not have some Democrat votes and do it in a bipartisan way?

INGRAHAM: But the Democrats are for enforcement you just said. I mean, you're for enforcement --

JACOBY: I certainly am a Republican. I'm not a Democrat.

INGRAHAM: OK, so Chuck Schumer has said many times he is for enforcement. Other Democrats, they are totally for enforcement.

JACOBY: But they also want to do something for the DACA kids as does the president.

INGRAHAM: Monica, look, I want to believe in my heart of hearts that there is not some major sellout in the offing. I can't imagine the president would do that. I mean, that would be the end of his presidency. You already have people who are concerned about this.

But if he goes ahead and does that, you know, I think few people have given him better advice than probably Corey sitting here, myself, and a few others. He has a lot of new found friends who are calling him racist, sexist, xenophobic, it seems like yesterday.

MONICA CROWLEY, CONSERVATIVE COMMENTATOR: Yes. I don't think he cares much about his newfound friends who are lavishing him with praise based on what went down in that meeting yesterday, Laura. Look, we are a little worried because we are so conditioned by establishment Republicans and others who have led us down over many decades, people on both sides of the aisle frankly.

This president is completely different. I think what you saw in that meeting, Donald Trump knew what he was doing. He knew what he was doing with that strategic contradiction. Look, of all of his campaign promises, build the wall inspired the most passionate support, I don't think he's going to let us down on that.

His platform about dealing with illegal immigration once and for all, he knows he's got one shot before the end of the year in the 2018 midterm elections. He knows what he's got to do.

He's got to start funding -- building the wall. He has to end at sanctuary cities. He has to end the visa lottery program. He's got --

INGRAHAM: Immigration --

CROWLEY: And chain migration.

INGRAHAM: -- 44 percent of the green cardholders --

CROWLEY: Absolutely. He's got to accelerate deportations and he's got to unblock those immigration courts. I know that's a tall order, Laura, but this president is up to it. That's what he promised.

INGRAHAM: He got to do it, he can't be whatever Durbin and Feinstein and Cory Gardner agreed to. I have Corey -- thoughts for Cory Gardner later on in the show. People don't want to miss what I'm about to reveal about Cory Gardner. Lindsey Graham said this today to any of us who would dare criticize these tactics. Let's watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SENATOR LINDSEY GRAHAM, R-S.C.: Those folks don't have to solve problems, the president does. He's got to work with Democrats to fix problems like immigration. They don't. They're pretty much outliers when it comes to where the American people are. His job is not to sell books, his job is not to carry a tv show, his job is to solve problems.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Thanks, Lindsey. That was -- we didn't realize that he is actually the president. Corey, take a shot at that one.

LEWANDOWSKI: Look, the president has been brought to Washington to solve the problems at this Congress and many before them have created --

INGRAHAM: They created it by leaving the border open. Not supporting anybody.

LEWANDOWSKI: Donald Trump has passed the massive tax reform package and what the president is going to do is fulfill the campaign promises that he outlined. What we saw yesterday was quintessential Donald Trump. He held those guys accountable. Have them accountable on television, the Democrats hate that because they want to go and make this rhetoric and have this propaganda --

INGRAHAM: But for Lindsey graham to be sitting at that table, your friend stick up to your friends. I like him, very much always have. Fox News and hard right, he tried this line in 2007. He tried it in 2014. You know who's no longer here in Washington? John Boehner and Eric Cantor. They sold the country out primarily on immigration.

Tamar, I want to go with you on this. On the issue of chain migration, the Democrats have said they are not for reduction to chain migration. What is your --

JACOBY: Over time we definitely need to rebalance. Too much is family migration not enough employment based migration, but it's -- that is a historic change, were going to change 200 years of history. We need to look carefully, and Democrats aren't going to be ready to do it right now across the board. I think it's possible to make some changes to change migration, but to totally change the system, I don't think it's going to happen.

INGRAHAM: We actually changed our immigration policy in 1965, changing it from a merit-based system to primarily bringing in the entire family tree migration system.

JACOBY: It should be country based. It was country based and people brought they knew and their relatives.

INGRAHAM: There are a million green-card grants every year and 44 percent our family migration. There are other family recipients that come in, only 18 percent are jobs related immigration.

(CROSSTALK)

JACOBY: The families work too -- 99.9 percent of the families work. Republicans believe in families. Families create a social fabric.

INGRAHAM: Like American families are the social fabric?

JACOBY: Why would you have just a bunch of single men workers and not families?

INGRAHAM: So, they are better than we are? The illegals coming in with all the extended family are better than the American workers.

JACOBY: No, I didn't say anything like that. I think immigration should be legal not illegal, but some family migration is not a bad thing.

INGRAHAM: Spouses and children. Illegal people Donald Trump said countless times on the campaign trail need to go home and apply the right way. That's the rule of law. If you want to change the law, change it. Compromise on this thing is going to be a bridge too far.

All of you I could have you for an hour I wish we did. By the way, how Trump is signaling a possible showdown with Bob Mueller over the Russia probe.

Plus, the president says Senator Feinstein may have broken the law by releasing congressional transcript from that Fusion GPS? Is he right on that? That debate coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

INGRAHAM: Senator Feinstein apologized today very quickly to Senator Chuck Grassley, the chair of the Judiciary Committee for publicly releasing the closed-door testimony of that Fusion GPS cofounder, Glenn Simpson. She said she was pressured to release it -- by whom? She added this ridiculous apology to the senator.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SENATOR DIANNE FEINSTEIN, D-CALIF.: The one regret I have is that I should have spoken with Senator Grassley before. I don't make an excuse, but I had a bad cold and maybe that slowed down my mental facilities a little bit.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Good Lord. President Trump says Feinstein possibly broke the law. Is that the case? Let's discuss this with Fox News contributor and senior editor of "The Federalist," Mollie Hemingway here in the studio.

Sol Wisenberg, they put that in the prompter. That is so unfair, you're serious, in Raleigh, North Carolina, former deputy independent counsel for the Whitewater investigation. Sol, I want to start with you.

The president said that this could have been illegal because she was operating while under the influence of Robitussin? I don't know what she was doing. It's not illegal for her to release this, just maybe unwise or imprudent.

SOLOMON L. WISENBERG, FORMER DEPUTY INDEPENDENT COUNSEL: I can't think of the law that it violates. It was an unclassified session from what I understand. The documents involved that he was talking -- he's a private citizen. That's why he said she possibly violated the law, right. There are a lot of laws in the books, but I think she's safe.

INGRAHAM: All right. We are going to get into who Mueller has hired, but Molly, it might not be illegal. What is really going on here? What's the bigger part of this narrative for our viewers who aren't all that accustomed to understanding this whole Fusion GPS deal.

MOLLIE HEMINGWAY, SENIOR EDITOR, THE FEDERALIST: I don't think it was illegal, but it was bizarre that she kind of blew up her committee that's normally a very collegial committee and that was a very weird thing for her to do. But the testimony was interesting.

I think what's happening is that everyone is kind of coming to the realization that collusion isn't happening, and they are just panicking and throwing everything out there. The testimony was interesting.

I mean, it already included two things that were false. He said that there was a mole in the Trump campaign and the guy who said that walked it back. There was also that lawyer claiming someone was killed over the dossier, he walked that back.

But it did point to the FBI playing around with this. They did talk about the wiretap that they secured, and these are the things that remain the focus now, people are curious. Was this opposition research use? Was that weaponized by the Obama administration to spy on opposing political --

INGRAHAM: They released one closed-door interview -- transcript, doesn't that begged the question, release all the others? I mean, why just that one?

HEMINGWAY: Right. I mean, the reason why you don't do it is the investigation is still ongoing and you can corrupt witness testimony. Right now, the actual movement is to declassify that application for the warrant that was used --

INGRAHAM: Spying on the Trump campaign.

HEMINGWAY: Doing this was not a wise move if you're not wanting that's to be declassified because the pressure ramps up.

INGRAHAM: Sol, I want to go to you on what the president said today and we have the sound bite about perhaps being interviewed by the special counsel, let's watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are you open to meeting with him?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Certainly, I'll see what happens, but when they have no collusion, and nobody has found any collusion at any level, it seems unlikely that he would even have an interview.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: He didn't really answer the question, but can he rebuff the request to be interviewed and what would that portend?

WISENBERG: Well, Mueller has got all the leverage here. Yes, he can rebuff it just like Clinton rebuffed our five or six interview requests. Then Mueller can issue a grand jury subpoena. Is he going to invoke the Fifth Amendment? I think that will be hard to keep secret and I think that would be very tough.

By the way, if he was a normal client, a white color client, you would absolutely decline to have him speak with Mueller. If you were subpoenaed to the grand jury, you would say we are taking the Fifth Amendment.

But again, because he's the president, he's not a normal client so he's got to go options. You either have an informal interview with your lawyer in the room, who can help control the situation or you sent him into the grand jury where he's all alone.

His lawyer is outside, but realistically he's not going to step outside after every question and talk to Ty Cobb. So, I think if Mueller really wants to interview him, he can force it by issuing a grand jury subpoena.

I think the best thing for the president to do in that instance is to have an informal interview if Mueller will allow it and he certainly showed with Ty Cobb in the room with him and have it recorded.

INGRAHAM: Unlike Hillary Clinton, Mollie, no transcript, he always hammers that point. No transcript. No recording. She did on the 4th of July weekend. The president always hammers that point and he's right. Hillary Clinton just skate on it.

HEMINGWAY: Right. If he could get that Hillary Clinton special where they don't record the interview, everyone around you gets immunity and you've already decided beforehand that you are not going to press any charges, that would be a great deal. I don't think he can fight the subpoena if it comes to that.

INGRAHAM: All right. Thanks, guys.

WISENBERG: Mueller is a real prosecutor.

INGRAHAM: He's hiring more people. He hired that cyber-crimes expert which is not a sign that they're closing down this investigation anytime soon. By the way, guys, have you caught the latest, this guy's latest act?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This idiot is the president.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Well, my response to Bobby De Niro and the #metoo movement targets another actor. Stay tuned.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

INGRAHAM: All right, keep it locked here, because it's time for our seen and unseen segment where we expose what's really behind the big culture stories of the day. And first up, Robert De Niro who is truly one of Hollywood's iconic tough guys, but his act isn't so award-winning when he talks trash in the real world of politics.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERT DE NIRO, ACTOR: This -- idiot is the president.

(APPLAUSE)

DE NIRO: It's the emperor's new clothes. The guy is a -- fool, come on.

Our baby in chief, -- chief, I call him.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: I think he means the emperor has no clothes, not new clothes. If someone doesn't write his lines he just blows them. That's really incisive. I'm really glad I missed the Fockers. And that's where we begin our seen and unseen segment with Fox News contributor Raymond Arroyo. Raymond, he's just been mouthing off for years. I thought I loved De Niro. I actually had a chance to take a plane ride with him once.

RAYMOND ARROYO, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: There's a story.

INGRAHAM: He was drinking Jack Daniel's at 1:00 in the afternoon. He can throw them back. But that's a story for another day.

ARROYO: OK.

INGRAHAM: So let's talk about this. He is just off the rails on Trump.

ARROYO: He's one of the great actors of his generation. I always feel embarrassed for a guy like Robert De Niro, "Godfather," "The Wizard of Lies" he recently got awards for. But it undermines the work when you engage in this kind of ad hominem. It cuts your audience in half or more, and it drives people who genuinely love his work. He's a great actor. But don't do this. It embarrasses you rambling, and as you said, without the line it's trouble. They say some actors take the role home with him. He's caught somewhere between "Raging Bull" and "Wizard of Lies." I'll leave it there.

(LAUGHTER)

INGRAHAM: OK, Catherine Deneuve, let's talk about iconic, French actress amazing. Age 74, she is still just as beautiful as ever. She had a few things to say about the Me Too movement. It sounds like she was reading our angles.

ARROYO: She and 99 other women signed a letter. This is the backlash to the Me Too movement.

INGRAHAM: OK, she said men have been punished summarily, forced out of their jobs, when all they did is touch someone's knee or try to steal a kiss. As women we do not recognize ourselves in this feminism which is beyond denouncing the abuse of power and takes on a hatred of men and sexuality. We're a little behind here. Someone's knee or try to steal a kiss, that's a fun graphic.

ARROYO: You know what it is. The French have a different view of this. They take this in totality, and they are saying, wait, we may have gone too far. Some men have been inappropriately driven from their jobs on just an accusation, one that hasn't been proved.

INGRAHAM: A friend of mine said so much for ever dating someone who you work with. I guess that's never going to happen again because I know people who are married and have six and seven kids who married their husband at work because today with young people at work but you can't ever date anybody. It can't ever go wrong, I guess.

ARROYO: And these women do go out of their way, these French, these are authors, actresses, well-known women.

INGRAHAM: The demonization of men.

ARROYO: And they've gone out of their way to say rape is crime.

INGRAHAM: Of course it is. Abuse is abuse is abuse.

ARROYO: But let's not get carried away.

INGRAHAM: No, the best ever was Meryl Streep last week saying that Dustin Hoffman in 1979, another film I loved, it was searing that film, "Kramer vs. Kramer," that in the scene where he slaps her, he slapped me too hard. Is that method acting? He slapped too hard?

ARROYO: He is a method actor, and maybe she deserved it.

INGRAHAM: This is how pathetic it is. This is how bad it's gotten. Ally Sheedy, the actress from all those old 80s films, "Breakfast Club," she never did do the dinner club -- she actually called out actor James Franco after he was at the Golden Globes awards. And she said "James Franco just won. Please never ask me why I left the TV and film business." Basically saying that he --

ARROYO: She claims with two other actresses that there was some chicanery going on. One actress on Twitter after he won the Golden Globe for a movie appropriately called "The Disaster Artist," she claims that he made her take her clothes off for a film. Another claims he seduced a 17-year-old which he has admitted to.

INGRAHAM: We have a film out that nominated for all these awards of an adult man seducing a 17-year-old boy, and that's called the most amazing --

ARROYO: "Call Me By Your Name."

INGRAHAM: "Call Me By Your Name." I always forget the name of the film.

ARROYO: Well, you can't call --

INGRAHAM: I can't call it by its name. I can't remember it at all. But that is the epic art-house film of the year. Adult man seducing an underage boy, but James Franco apparently can't seduce a 17 -- I need to understand that these very confusing rules.

ARROYO: James Franco got up and accepted his Golden Globe with a Times Up button on his lapel. Hollywood undermined itself and its message by giving this guy a Golden Globe when he may be one of the malefactors here, one of the guys they may have to strike from the record. "New York Times" yesterday canceled an event with him because of these charges.

INGRAHAM: Should we play the Colbert? Do we have time? We don't have time. What a tragedy.

ARROYO: He denied the charges.

INGRAHAM: He said I'm not sure. This is my favorite. I'm here to listen and learn and change my perspective, don't you know, where it's often I'm completely willing and I want to. If someone doesn't write their lines, they are really bad writers of their own.

(LAUGHTER)

INGRAHAM: Raymond, thanks so much as always.

ARROYO: Thank you.

INGRAHAM: Up next, I confront a transgender politician who has led an effort to ban the word "he" and "she" from my old home state Connecticut Stamford legislative rules. Don't go away.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

INGRAHAM: OK, stay with me here. The board of representatives in the city of Stamford, Connecticut, has voted to ban the use of gender pronouns from its governing rulebook. That means people can't be referred to as "he" and "she" in the city's written rules. Don't they have bigger problems in Connecticut? One of those who proposed the change is my guest, Raven Matherne, the state's first openly transgender elected official. Welcome, Raven, it's great to see you. How are you?

REP. RAVEN MATHERNE, STAMFORD BOARD OF REPRESENTATIVES: Doing good. Thank you so much for having me.

INGRAHAM: Absolutely. OK, so get me up to speed on the pronouns because in New York you have to use -- you can't use "he" or "her" or "she" or "him" at all. I guess you have to use "ze" or "hir," z-e or h-i-r, or you can use they or their, and you can be fined if you don't use the right pronoun in New York. You actually can be fined. So you're not quite there.

MATHERNE: No. To be honest, I'm not too up-to-date on New York state's laws because my stuff happens in Connecticut. But really my goals here, the issues that we were trying to tackle were simply the rules of the board. We're not looking to ban terminology. Quite the opposite, I think lead the charge in people wanted to use their pronouns. I don't want to tell someone no, you can't be a he, and no you can't be a she. Quite the opposite, use what makes you happy, use what makes you feel right.

INGRAHAM: But you require that people refer to you as -- when do did you transition? When was that.

MATHERNE: I don't like to use the word "require." I prefer. If someone else is going to use gendered nouns for me that I don't like, I'm not going to take offense to it. There are bigger issues at hand than this. This issue, what we were doing is, and I hesitate to even say we because when I got on the board, when I was elected, the first issues I wanted to tackle were, and we are tackling our issues of development not being handled responsibly in our city.

INGRAHAM: You have crime.

MATHERNE: These are what are actually important.

INGRAHAM: Raven, you know what I was thinking, I grew up in Connecticut and Glastonbury, not too far.

MATHERNE: Nice.

INGRAHAM: A little bit of a drive from you. But Connecticut has so many problems. Losing jobs. Losing businesses. Taxes. I don't care if you are transgender, gay, straight, whatever you are, but if you are in politics in Connecticut, save Connecticut, because Connecticut is going down the tubes. So when I read articles about pronouns, changes for the rulebook in Stamford, I'm like, my God.

MATHERNE: I keep seeing my face in the newspaper and laughing. I think it's a little ridiculous to be quite honest. When I was elected there were other members of the board, we were in the middle of reviewing all of our rules. There was I want to say something like 30 rule changes we were doing. I could be wrong about that but there were quite a large number of them. And this was one proposed by a couple of other people on the board, both Democrats and Republicans that were looking at and saying I guess this doesn't really fit considering who was just elected. What can we do to make the rules more appropriate?

INGRAHAM: So you weren't even the driving force behind this. There were - -

MATHERNE: Correct.

INGRAHAM: -- feel good, do goo other members of the board. That's wild given all the things that Stamford and all the other towns and cities in Connecticut face. That's actually incredible. You could be someone who just tries to work to fix Stamford instead of focusing on pronouns which it seems to be that you don't even really, you're not really even all that worked up about it.

MATHERNE: What I think is funny is it keeps being said we are focusing on it. And meanwhile when we were at the January 2nd meeting at the board of reps, the meeting lasted I want to say maybe an hour or 45 or something along those lines, and there were a lot of heated discussions. There were a lot of controversial topics that are trying to tackle right now. And this was a tiny little asterisk next to it saying, oh, we got a transgender elected official and now the rules match as well.

INGRAHAM: OK, well, we appreciate you joining us and we wish you the best of luck.

MATHERNE: Of course, thank you so much.

INGRAHAM: All right, absolutely.

And by the way, you know that frequent Trump critic Senator Cory Gardner who was in that DACA a meeting yesterday? He now vows to block the president's judicial nominees over pot. I kid you not. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

INGRAHAM: Welcome back. A tale of two senators, that's the subject of tonight's bonus angle.

First, Republican Senator Cory Gardner. He's an affable, attractive first termer from Colorado. He was also one of the members at that big DACA meeting yesterday. That's nice. Did you also know that he is threatening to hold up President Trump's judicial nominees? It turns out that Gardner is upset because Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced that he won't prevent federal prosecutions against marijuana sales and possession even in states like Gardener's that have bowed down to the big weed lobby and legalized it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. CORY GARDNER, R-COLO.: I will be putting a hold on every single nomination from the Department of Justice until Attorney General Jeff Sessions lives up to the commitment that he made to me in my confirmation - - in my pre-confirmation meeting with him.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: They had a committed relationship. We've asked Gardner to appear on the "The Ingraham Angle" many times since we launched, same with radio. But he has declined each time. Tucker and Sean don't have much luck getting him on either. Interesting. But Gardner did have plenty of time on his schedule to appear on MSNBC today.

He is one of those Republicans that The New York Times and the liberal cable networks usually love. First, he resisted Trump all the way up until August of 2016, and even then he wouldn't even mention his name. He also never really campaigned for him. He jumped on Trump after Charlottesville. And when Trump canceled DACA in September, Gardner immediately rushed to back his own bill to save the Dreamers. And now defending the pot lobby, cloaking it in a bogus state's rights argument -- President Trump, beware of Cory Gardner, especially when it comes to the issue of immigration.

Gardner used to talk tough on securing the border first. But now like so many who came to Washington, he seems to be more concerned with being loved by the in crowd while avoiding tough questions to people like me. I would be fair and tough, much better for Cory Gardner to come on this show and answer some straightforward questions. Why hiding? Other people who hid were people like Eric Cantor and sometimes John Boehner. But they are not around anymore.

And then there's Elizabeth Warren. Among her many degrees in law and speech pathology, I'll bet economics is not one of them. Waste management, a huge company in the United States, announced today that because of the passage of the tax reform bill they are going to give $2,000 bonuses 34,000 employees. That sounds like great news. Who wouldn't want a $2,000 bonus? But here's what Elizabeth Warren thinks of the bill.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN, D-MASS.: What we have to do is change it. You've got to take out the parts that are giant giveaways to big corporations that right now the Republicans plan for hardworking families to eventually pay for.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: She apparently doesn't realize, former Harvard law professor, that when corporations make money, shareholders and employees do too, they do better. Ditto for pension holders and 401(k)s. Does she not understand that businesses aren't entities without the people they employ and other people who are the shareholders? They are the owners of these companies, they own stocks and otherwise and mutual funds that invest in them. In other words, the booming economy, Elizabeth, is good for the working people. Princess running mouth claims to represent the working people.

Two senators, two different parties, two people who in different ways are missing the message of the last election. Stay with us. Do not move. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

INGRAHAM: Before we go, our thoughts and our prayers go out to Steve Scalise tonight. Another surgery today on the way to his recovery after being shot at that congressional baseball game last year. His doctors say things are looking good, but he's been through so much, and with grace and perseverance and courage, and almost always a smile on his face. Steve Scalise tonight once again recovering from yet another surgery.

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